Chosen Eternity
by rhythm-within
Summary: '"Sammy, some guy's been following me around all week..." Dean says in to the phone receiver.' The boys aren't raised as hunters but the apocalypse still comes for them.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

"Sammy, some guy's been following me around all week..." Dean says in to the phone receiver.

"What are you doing up, Dean? Isn't it, like, eight in the morning out there?" Sam says, surprising Dean that he even answered his cell while at work.

"I _do_ work, dickhead."

Dean hears Sam's easy laugh. "Good to hear from you, too."

"This is serious shit, Sam,"

"All right, all right," Sam placates, holding back more laughter, "What's he look like?"

"I don't know. Normal? Like, dark hair and a light brown trench coat thing."

"How old?"

"Maybe thirty five?"

"Okay. Well, doesn't sound too threatening. You've got that gun that Dad gave you, right?"

"Yeah, I've got the gun but I've never shot one in my life and what the hell kind of legal advice is that anyway?

"Dean, I'm not your lawyer, I'm your brother. Besides, if you really don't feel comfortable, you should go to a shooting range and do some practicing."

"Why is that even your answer? That's not a normal answer!"

"It's self defense, Dean."

"You think I even _know_ where a damn shooting range is?"

"It's called the Internet, dude. You should check it out sometime."

"Ha. Ha. Seriously, there's nothing I can do besides potentially _shoot_ this guy?"

"Honestly, nothing legal. I'm not entirely sure what the guns laws are in California but I know you can't arrest someone for being creepy and there's no evidence he's stalking you. You can go to the police station and file an official complaint but they can't really do anything unless he's really done anything…You've only seen him in public places, right?"

"Yeah, just around the garage. I asked some of the other guys if they'd seen him but they said they didn't see anything."

"Sorry, Dean. There's really nothing to do here except be prepared."

"Yeah, all right. Thanks, then."

"Don't sound _too_ enthusiastic, now." Sam laughs.

"Yeah, yeah."

"Bye, Dean."

"Later, asshat."

…

All the lights are off in the house when Dean gets home from work. The sky is black and cloudless and the house is casting the usual shadows as he walks towards the bowl he keeps his keys in on the island in the kitchen.

"What the _fuck? _Why are you in my house?" Dean screams, spotting his new stalker hovering in the middle of the kitchen floor. Dean seriously wishes he'd bothered to go to a shooting range.

The man's head snaps in Dean's direction and he moves towards him in a disconcertingly deliberate way, spider-like. Dean _really_ wishes he'd taken Sam's advice.

Feeling like a cat, Dean nearly slams to his knees as he tries to scrabble away down the hall to get to the drawer in the bureau underneath the television where he kept the gun ever since the man started following him.

Glass is shattering all around the man as he walks forward and the electricity is flickering on and off. It feels like rain and Dean dashed behind his couch, the old pistol shaking in his hand.

"Don't come any closer or I'll shoot!" Dean cries, hoping the man doesn't hear the quiver in his voice. He isn't even sure the safety is off or if there are actually bullets in the stupid thing. He hadn't bothered to check and he can see his hands are sweating.

Dean's warning does nothing to deter the man and he's finding he can't pull the trigger on the antique firearm even though the man is standing on the other side of the couch, his knees touching the dingy cushions.

"You won't shoot me, Dean," the man says in a voice much gruffer than Dean had expected, sending shivers down his spine at the unusual speech pattern.

"Who _are_ you?" Dean feels desperate, his face contorting in panic. "How do you know my name?"

"I am Castiel, Angel of the Lord."

Dean feels icy fear slice through his limbs and freeze his mobility; he knows now that he's dealing with a crazy person.

"Look, I don't know what you want but you can have it. Whatever you want. Just don't hurt me." Dean manages to get out, surprised that he could even force words through in his state.

"I'm not here to harm you, Dean. God has work for you." There is an odd light in the man's eyes that sets him on edge.

"Seriously, buddy," his mind is racing, incredulous that he is getting testy with a possibly murderous intruder, "I don't know what you want but just take it and leave me alone. _Please_." Thunder claps outside the window to Dean's left and he flinches at the sound. It never rains in southern California. "You want my money? Here's my wallet," Dean clumsily pulls his wallet out of his back pocket and flings it at the man, all the while still trying to point the gun with his unsteady left hand.

"I am not here to take anything from you, Dean. I am here to inform you of your calling, Dean."

"Dude, you've got the wrong guy!"

"No. You are Dean Winchester. Your brother is Sam Winchester. He has a role as well."

"You stay away from my brother!" Dean snarls, both hands back on the gun and his grip tightening, determined now, "He has _nothing_ to do with this."

Lightning flashes just outside the window, impeccable timing. Dean swears he sees the shadow of impossibly large set of wings stretching over the far wall and brushing the bunny eared television set. Before he can think, he hear the sound of the tree from his back yard—the one he had been worried about for several months and had started saving money to chop it down—splitting to its core. Its shadow looms for a split second outside the window curtains, closer than ever, before he knows it's going to rip through the house and that he is going to die. He squeezes his eyes shut, waiting for his ironic death while he's being robbed.

Before he opens them again, he feels the cold rain hitting him in the face and the soggy grass between his bare toes. He is outside and the stranger has a hand on his left shoulder, warm and uncomfortable. The stupid tree has smashed a humongous hole in his living room and he can see all his belongings through it, the rain saturating anything the massive trunk hadn't already destroyed. He can't bring himself to feel remorse, though; he, at least, is not dead.

"What—how did you—what's going—I'm still _alive_—how?" Dean stammers, eyes moving up to the other man—Castiel—who is staring at the tree.

"Angel of the Lord, Dean." The man's eyebrow quirks up and Dean would swear the angel was getting snarky with him.

"Right…"

Dean takes a long, deep breath and blows it out in a gesture that reminds him a lot of Sam.

"I think I need to call my brother."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"Do you remember how your mother died?" Castiel asks Dean, looking over from the passenger seat of the Impala. They are somewhere in Oklahoma on I-40.

"Bringing up a guy's dead mother. Real conversation starter, there, Cas." He's already taken to shortening the angel's name, feeling somewhat more comfortable around him after x hours sitting in the Impala.

The angel's brow furrows and he is at a loss for a second.

"Do you _remember_, Dean?" He asks, instead of trying to get Dean to explain the nuances of human interaction once more.

Dean sighs and turns down the Zeppelin tape; this is serious business. "I remember…"

"How much?" Dean sees Castiel cock his head to the side in his peripheral vision.

He chances a look across at the angel who still looks oddly inquisitive.

"Probably not as much as you'd like," Dean guesses, when his eyes are back on the road. He overcorrects from the brief glance at his passenger, who is still silent. "House fire, faulty wiring."

"Your mother was killed by a demon." Castiel deadpans, looking as though he might feel smug about correcting him. Dean feels a knife stab his guts at the prospect, thinking of the sort of creatures that poke sinners with sticks in the sixth layer of hell; he is barely able to hang on to the concept of angels at this point.

There is a shoulder on the side of the road and Dean jerks the car onto it; there is a farm beyond the fence, in the distance. Dean jumps out of the vehicle violently and slams the door before walking around towards the yellow farm land. Castiel is suddenly beside him.

"I understand that this is distressing—"

"_Distressing!_" Dean interrupts, "Distressing doesn't even come _close!_" He's yelling and he doesn't care. He moves back toward the car and turns away from the angel. "What the fuck did you hope to gain from dropping that on me? First angels, now fucking _demons!_ What's next? Big Birds and Loch Ness monsters?"

"There is a whole realm of paranormal creatures out there, yes—"

"Oh yeah, that _fucking_ makes me feel better." Dean says, sarcastically leaning onto the passenger's side of the car.

"I want you to be prepared for what lies ahead of you—"

"What 'lies ahead of me?' Seriously? Is this Star Wars or something? I didn't sign up for this. I didn't ask for this. And I definitely didn't ask for _you, _Obi Wan." Castiel's face scrunches at the reference when Dean sees him enter his line of sight. "I'm only _here_ because a fucking _tree_ landed on the house I was renting and now I need to go see my brother. For legal reasons."

"No one can choose their destiny, Dean."

"Oh my god. _Destiny_. Are you _kidding_ me? Let's cut that shit, shall we?"

"I can leave if you would like me too..."

"Oh no. Oh no, no, no. Your little angel ass is staying right where I can keep tabs on you. I need to be able to show this shit to my brother when he doesn't believe me."

"Oh, I assure you. Your brother will need considerably less persuasion than you required."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"You will see," Castiel says to Dean—who is plodding back towards the driver's side of the car.

"Whoa. Just 'cause you're an angel doesn't mean you get to be _cryptic_ about shit." Dean snaps, glaring at Castiel over the hood of the Chevy now.

"Actually," Castiel says, "it does." And he disappears in a ruffle of invisible feathers.

"Fuck." Dean says to himself and climbs back in the car. "Fuck," he says again, aggressively starting the engine and then apologizing when the car makes a screeching sound of protest.

…

"So, it turns out that Dad hunted paranormal _creatures_." Dean says, pacing back in forth in Sam's kitchen, with an air of disbelief. Castiel had appeared again in Dean's hotel room in Carthage, Missouri and filled him in a little more. Sam is opens three different, consecutive cabinets before he finds a wine glass on the top shelf. He nearly drops it, though, at the speed with which he turns towards Dean.

"Dean, I know you're stressed about your house but are you oh—"

"Yes, I'm _oh-kay_, Sam," Dean interrupts, feeling mildly irritated. "Cas told me all about this. I barely believe it myself. And Mom…"

"Cas?" Sam interrupts, eyes squinting, avoiding the topic of deceased parents.

"My stalker-turned-Angel of the Lord—"

"_Angel_, Dean? Paranormal creatures _and_ angels? Are you on something?"

"Sam, I don't have time for your skeptical bullshit. There's an _angel_, okay? He saved me. I would have been a pancake under that _tree_ if it hadn't been for him."

"Are you sure you're not just _exaggerating_ this whole story?"

"Sam. There's an angel." Dean suddenly calls up towards the ceiling. "Cas!" Sam looks at him funny. "Cas, get your feathery ah—"

There is a whoosh of sound and displacement of air.

Sam gasps and his hand moves towards his waist line.

"Hello, Dean. Sam." Castiel says from behind Dean. "Pleased to see you made it."

"Yeah, well, where _were_ you?" Dean accused, spinning on the angel.

"I have priorities, Dean."

"Sure." He dismisses him, turning back to his brother. "See. Angel."

"Okay. He just popped up out of _nowhere_."

"Yes. He does that. Part of the whole 'angel' bit."

"How do you know he's an angel and not…_something else?_" Sam whispers conspiratorially at Dean, pulling his brother by the arm away from Castiel as though the angel wasn't close enough to see or hear.

"He, ah—" Dean gestures vaguely over his shoulder with one hand, "does this freaky..._wing_ thing..."

"Well," Sam is still tightly whispering, "that's _irrefutable_ evidence." He sounds almost angry.

"Might I suggest a more...constructive line of conversation?" Castiel cuts in.

"Fine," Dean says at the same time that Sam says "No!" with distrustfully squinted eyes.

"Your father's old friend, Bobby Singer. Go see him, learn all that you can about hunting. The road ahead of you is long and arduous."

"Arduous. You keep _saying _shit like that, Cas. It's not reassuring."

"It is not meant to be." Castiel squints his eyes skeptically.

Dean narrows his eyes in response but says nothing.

"Bobby was the last man to see your father alive. Go and learn."

"But," Dean blinks his eyes and the angel is gone.

"This is nuts," Sam says mostly to himself as he stares unseeingly at the spot Castiel had stood, running a hand through his hair. "You know this is nuts, right? I have a job and prospects...I can't just...pack up and leave..." He picks up his wine glass and pulls a visible bottle of the top of the fridge. He downs three consecutive glasses.

"Well, maybe we _should_ go see Bobby, Sam. I mean, on the off chance there really are, you know, _creatures_…" Dean can't help making a face, picturing something remarkably similar to the Blob.

"Dean, do you even know where he lives? Do you really want to just drop everything and go to South Dakota?"

"I don't have an 'everything' to drop, Sam. Besides, I vaguely recall where he lives. We were in and out of there a lot until I was seventeen. I know he's in Sioux Falls, owns a place called Singer Salvage Yard."

"Yeah, well, I have an 'everything.' The firm, the house, Jessica. Are you sure going to see him is a good idea, Dean?"

"I don't know. But what else are we gonna do?"

"How about you go back home and we'll both carry on our normal lives like we always have before?" Sam keeps his voice level like he thinks Dean is some sort of time bomb.

"Sam, I—I kind of don't think that's an option. I get the feeling that we can't ignore this. Be it _divine_ intervention or not."

Sam puffs out a short burst of somewhat frustrated air.

"Fine, we'll go if it makes you feel better."

"Oh believe me, Sunshine, this ain't about feeling better."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

"Sam?" Bobby answers the door, startled. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, Bobby, I'm fine." He steps aside and lets Dean step up next to him.

"Dean? What are you boys doing here?"

"We need you to teach us how to _hunt_," Dean explains, waggling his eyebrows for emphasis. His hands lodged in his jacket pockets; he's grown unaccustomed to cold weather and the drive with snow chains on the tires.

"I don't really do much deer hunting anymore, boys..." Bobby tries to deflect.

"Not _that_ sort of hunting." Dean makes the sign of the cross across his body, hoping it will clue him in.

Bobby looks from Sam's still face to Dean's eager one and his own face falls.

"I guess you'd better come in, then." He swings the door open wider to invite them in.

….

"First off, I don't think you're supposed to know about this stuff and second off, I don't have _time_ to train you boys anyway. There's been a slurry of demon activity all up and down the midwest." Bobby says, looking at the Winchester boys gravely. All three of them are gingerly nursing untouched beers; Dean desperately wants a swig of his but it doesn't seem proper etiquette at the time.

"I wanted your dad to at least introduce you to a few weapons, verse you in the ways of salt, but John was always a stubborn sonuvabitch. He wanted to keep you two as far away from it all as possible."

"I think we just need the basics, Bobby," Sam says in a soft voice, his eyebrows furrowed in that way that makes people do what he wants them to. "We could even come on cases with you or something."

"I can try teaching ya but the last thing I need is a couple of inexperienced chuckleheads getting themselves killed in the first three seconds of a small ghost case." The man huffs a sigh, glaring at Sam in a way that says he is not happy about the situation.

He walks into the next room and picks something up to bring back to the table. He thunks it down among all the other books and papers with odd symbols all over them. Dean stares, nonplussed, at the leather-bound book with papers sticking out haphazardly for its guts. It looks right at home on Bobby's table.

"This was your father's. He'd probably want you to have it in this situation." He pauses and looks very seriously between the brothers. "What, exactly, brought you two here anyway?"

"Divine intervention, Bobby." He laughs at the look of incredulity on Bobby's face. "An angel. Seriously, an angel told us to come here."

Bobby just huffs two barely-laughs before clarifying "An angel? Demons, I've heard of, but an angel?"

"Yeah, fucking demons. But, uh, yeah, his name is Castiel. He wears a trench coat." Dean's eyes fly up to the water stained ceiling, "Ay, yo, Cas! Why don't you come down here and say hi to Bobby?" Dean calls.

A silence falls over the three men as they wait, all subconsciously holding their breaths. Nothing happens. And nothing happens still.

"Some angel you got there," Bobby snorts and stands up from the table and takes a long drink from his beer.

"There is an angel!" Dean cries, starting to doubt himself now. "Or something. He told me he was an angel…he has wings and shit."

"I saw it, too. Whatever it was. It says it's an angel but who knows. Either way, he sent us here, told us to come see you and learn about hunting. It sounds like pretty good advice, bad guy or not."

"Well, boys, I've got something else going on right now. A few of my contacts haven't responded to me in a few days about the demon activity, which is more than enough time to get suspicious in this line of work. I need to go check up on them—"

"Bobby, just let us go with you. We won't be in your way." Sam assures with soft eyes. Dean feels a sense of pride swell in his chest at the realization that Sam has to be doing this for Dean's sake.

"Fine," Bobby said, pointing one finger, "but only on one condition. And you'd better stick to it. Ya hear me?"

The brothers nod, solemnly wordless.

"If you see anything weird, and I do mean _anything_," Bobby told them, "shoot it first, ask questions never."

"You got it," Dean says, clapping his hands together in excitement—the prospect of shooting something for real is exhilarating—at the same time that Sam says stoically "Okay."

…

"The safety's still on," Bobby whispers harshly as they creep through the front door. It was locked and Bobby had jimmied it open with a pair of pins while Sam loomed awkwardly behind him told him he was especially interested in learning that trick; Dean tries not to read too much in to it.

"Thanks" Dean says, sarcastically, fumbling awkwardly with the safety while Sam laughs at his expense.

"I take it you never got to the shooting range." Sam jibes.

"Shut up." Dean bumps his brother a little harder than necessary.

"I bet you didn't even use the gun on that angel."

"Sam, _shut_ up," Dean says, a little more forcefully this time, as they come into a room with an extensive gun collection. "Damn," he completely forgets to be offended when he is completely overwhelmed by the firearms. Though, he can't tell if he's more frightened or excited by them. That is, until Bobby cries out for him to watch out and he realizes he nearly tripped on a corpse.

"Oh _fuck!_" he cries as Bobby yanks him backwards.

The body is strewn haphazardly on the carpet, chest cavity split completely open. Dean has a moment where he feels sorrow at the fact that the woman bled out so completely on her own floor.

"Salt," Bobby explains to Sam, who has a glazed over look in place, and points to a line of it on the floor. Dean's mind can't make sense of the word for a second even though he's looking at the white granules not too far away from the body. He almost asks but Bobby is speaking again. "EMF meter," he's pointing to a device lying in the cache of guns and weapons the woman had in a compartment not too far from where she was lying. "Looks like she was pretty aware of ghost activity."

"Then—then how did it _get_ her?" Sam's voice is strained but calm.

"Tell you the truth," Bobby says, "I ain't ever seen a ghost do _that_ to a person." Bobby's eyes give away how shocked his is at the utter violence of the act. "This must be something...different."

"Like a ghost on steroids?" Dean reverts to his gallows humor, staring at the salt instead of the obvious elephant in the room.

Bobby pulls a face but doesn't refute him. "I was thinking demon but it could be something like that." He pauses a second, eyes lingering on someone he used to call a friend. "Look, boys, I need to make a few phone calls." And he walks out of the house, leaving Sam and Dean standing awkwardly around the carcass, unsure of what else they should do while they waited. Something in Dean wanted to gather her pale limbs up in his arms, drag her outside, and dig a hole for her. Instead, he just kicks at the salt.

"What do you think the salt is for?" he asks, looking up at Sam.

"Warding," Sam's voice is tight and it's enough to let the silence take over again.

They hear the footsteps come back into the room and Dean doesn't like what he sees on Bobby's face.

"I called a few other hunters in the area—" the grief is clear in the wrinkles around Bobby's eyes, "No one else is answering."

"Should we…go check on them, too?" Sam asks and Bobby nods in response. Dean feels pride for his brother though he can't exactly place why. He just knows that Sam is a good kid.

Each house they visit sends Bobby further into his grief and he winds up lecturing the boys a few times. "People don't ever really leave this life, boys." He says more than once. "They all die before they can even try."

Dean knows Bobby's trying to use the increasing number of cadavers they've discovered as cautionary tales, but he still feels like he doesn't have a choice, like he can't walk away even if he wanted to; the life chose him. And Sam. Though, his conviction wavers a little every time he sees a new person—a new face—someone he'll never know even though they must have been good people if Bobby liked them, mutilated and redecorating their own homes with their blood and internal organs.

The hunched body of what looked like a quiet man with glasses—Oliver Terry—is the last straw; Bobby just silently walks right back out of the house and dials the police to report the 'crime.'

"What now?" Sam asks, trying to be sensitive but feeling uncomfortable as Bobby just stands by the car staring into the middle distance.

"Guess we'd better head back to my place, see if we can dig up any information on what's going on." He sounds far away but neither of the boys can fault him for it.

The car is one of the hundreds of old beaters from the yard that still works and Bobby jumps into the driver's seat. Sam and Dean exchange a look, not entirely comfortable with the older man driving in the state he's in but unwilling to risk the temper they might incur if they were to protest. Wordlessly, the brother's agree that Sam will take the passenger seat to keep an eye on Bobby and Dean will take the back seat so he can sprawl out and attempt to not imagine a ghost coming in through the trunk and shredding his chest open while he sleeps.

…

"So, how do you actually kill a ghost, Bobby?" Dean asks, stalking the length of the study as Bobby thumbs through a tome opened on his cluttered desk.

"Typically? You salt and burn their bones. Though, I'm not sure this is typical and I'm not sure if it's just one ghost." Bobby looks up then, trying to convey his frustration at the anomalous situation they're in. "If you mean how do you _protect_ yourself before you can get rid of them, there are a few methods. The salt ring, that keeps them can hit them with pretty much anything iron and that sets them back a few seconds. My personal favorite is salt rounds, though it's not always the quickest method. So, when in doubt: _iron_."

"Noted." Dean nods, trying to look less bothered by the matter-of-fact way he is discussing actual _ghosts_ with the man who probably did more raising of Sam and Dean than their own father. "How do you know where there's a ghost, besides the E-L-F thing you pointed at?"

"First of all, it's E-_M_-F..." Bobby gives Dean a withering look with one eyebrow raised. "But typically, if one's approaching your breath does this weird—" and on the word 'weird' a cloud of wintery condensation puffs out of Bobby's mouth. "_That__!_ That's how you know!" He shouts wildly as he spins to locate the specter he knows is in the room with them.

Behind Bobby, an angry-looking black man is stalking towards them. The man is yelling at Bobby, unintelligible words that Dean can't hear over the thudding of his own pulse in his ears.

"Iron!" Bobby yells and Dean scrambles to grab a prod from next to the fire place, fumbling and nearly dropping it with the tremor that is going through his hands at the suddenness of the wraithlike intruder's appearance.

The man has Bobby by the lapels and he's screaming but Dean can't hear it, he's just standing there with his fingers trembling around the iron rod, staring like a dead fish.

"Dean!" Sam's voice penetrates Dean's haze of panic. It's not enough to kill his nerves but he shoves through the weird pit in his stomach and forces himself to swing the iron with as little grace and precision as someone who's never played baseball in his life, expecting the metal to bounce off the shoulder of the livid specter. Instead, the ghost vanishes into a gray mist.

"You nearly took my head off with that thing!" Bobby gripes, trying to straighten out his clothing.

"I just _saved_ _your ass_, Bobby!" Dean tries to defend, adrenaline pumping as he heaves a breath, feeling tired.

"Barely," Bobby mutters and returns to his books, now furiously flipping pages.

"Whoa, whoa. What are you _doing_, Bobby?" Dean asks, rushing forward to look over his shoulder like the man is crazy for even staying in the same room he was just accosted in.

"While that ghost was grabbing me and you were being useless, I saw something on his hand—"

"Something on his hand?" Sam asks, moving forward as well, much more intrigued than stuck on thinking Bobby is insane.

"Yeah, a marking. Pretty sure I've seen it before..." Bobby explains, looking like another idea has occurred to him as we walks across the room to pull out a box from the corner. Without a word, he begins to show Dean how to pack shells with salt and put them in the gun. Sam continues to help Bobby look for the symbol he has drawn on a sheet of paper. Dean is unable to comprehend how either of them want to stay in the room.

"I'm I the only one who wants to _leave_ this room?" Dean finally shouts, throwing his hands up in frustration.

Instead of acknowledging Dean's outburst, Bobby just tells him to "keep packing."

Dean stares at him.

"We've got some research to do." Bobby moves away from the box and back towards the tome on his desk.

Dean tries to catch Sam's eye to try to get him to agree that Bobby is crazy tacitly, but Sam refuses to look up from where he's scanning pages like he's old hat at it. Dean has no choice but to keep shell-packing.

Not more than a half an hour later, Bobby announces that he's found it

"It's the Mark of the Witness," he says, pointing to a page with a language neither Sam nor Dean can read.

"Witness?" Sam questions, hovering closely over Bobby's shoulder.

"Well, working off what I've read and who it was that attacked me... I'd say the witness, or possibly witnesses—based on these other cases of dead hunters—is a witness to the paranormal. People who died unnatural deaths. And they were very unnaturally risen, too. Like someone intentionally rose 'em to make them angrier than ever." Bobby's face is grave.

"Why would someone _do_ that?" Dean makes an appalled face, still reeling from the first ghost attack he's ever experienced. He's kind of amazed at how well Sam is taking it.

"Do I look like _I_ know? All I know is that the spell was powerful—powerful enough to leave that mark on their soul."

"Well, shit." Dean says, taking it all in abstractly; it doesn't really make sense and he sure as hell can't visualize some crazy person chanting forcefully over a shrine of baby bones or something.

"Damn right." Bobby says, slightly amused by Dean's reaction. As Dean looks at Bobby, he can tell that he's not what Bobby expected out of John Winchester's coddled, non-hunting kid. "Whoever did this, they were thinking big. I'm guessing this is the Rising of the Witnesses. It's from an ancient prophecy."

"What kind of ancient prophecy?" Dean had taken a mythology class in community college and wants to see if he can be any form of useful.

"Well, essentially, it's from Revelations—_Shit!_" Bobby curses as a pair of little twin girls come racing out him from across the room. They've got him and Dean is panicking again, totally unprepared as he watches the twins grip Bobby, pull on his hair and cover his mouth. He cannot reconcile what is happening, can't believe that two small children are overpowering a grown man as they babble about a monster that got them, gobbled them all up. It was straight from a horror film. It wasn't _real_.

"Dean!" Sam cries and Dean slams into "incapable nincompoop mode" as he scrambles to remember his instructions—shoot first, ask questions later. _Gun, gun, where's the gun?_ He scrabbles and doesn't see it, moving towards Bobby despite the fear stiffening his limbs. Then he sees the fire iron he used to swing at the first ghost, knocked off the table during his search for a different weapon. He slams to his knees and stretches out his arm to reach it, but above him he hears clicking noises and an incredibly loud noise like a cannon. Through the ringing in his ears and the ensuing silence, he realizes that Sam has just shot two rounds at the Grady Twins and they have vanished.

"Thanks," Bobby glances noncommittally at Sam, heaving breath as he leans against his desk.

Sam just nods confidently and puts the gun down. "You were saying?" And Dean feels a wave of jealousy at how collected his brother is.

"Revelations." Bobby clears his throat and stands upright.

"'Revelations?'" Dean calls from the floor, slowly making his way back up to his seat. "As in, like, four housemen-apocalypse type 'Revelations?'" Dean makes a face that indicates even meeting an angel of the Lord and fighting what appear to be ghosts have not made _that_much of a dent in his skepticism. He's still not even sure he believes those are ghosts.

"That's the one," Bobby gives Dean a sarcastic wink and smile. Dean gives him a sarcastically snotty stink eye in return.

"So...?" Sam tries to coerce more information from Bobby.

"It's just like Dean said. This is a sign."

"A sign?" Dean squeaks.

"A sign of the _Apocalypse_, ya dipshits." Bobby gives him an exasperated look like he can't believe he had to explain it; he'd thought Dean had grasped the concept.

"Thanks, Bobby," Dean says sarcastically.

"I try," Bobby quips.

"Okay," Sam interrupts their squabble, rolling his eyes, "So, we obviously have at least the three ghosts on our tails and there could be more. What do we do about it?"

"Well, while you were cross referencing the symbol, I translated this spell," Bobby says, pulling a piece of paper up to show it to Sam. "Should send all 'Witnesses' back to rest. Looks like it needs to be cast over an open fire, but the good news is that I think I've got everything we need in the house."

"What sort of stuff?" Dean asks, trying to peer at the paper Sam is scanning.

"You don't really want to know," Bobby looks at him seriously.

"Awesome!" Dean stands up and claps his hands together, just to make sure everyone is aware of his displeasure at the situation.

Sam and Bobby just look at him like he is as completely useless as he has thusly proven himself to be.

"Well, we're in luck, anyway." Bobby explains as he rushes around finding the various ingredients he has stashed around the room. He hands a canvas sack to Sam who opens it and realizes exactly what to do. Bobby nods approval at the youngest Winchester as he makes a crude salt circle around the desk by the fire place.

Bobby hands Dean a metal lighter and gestures to some candles around the room. Dean is at least competent with a lighter since he used to smoke in high school.

"You boys haven't ever let anyone die, have you?" Bobby stops to look at them both. "Especially you, Sam."

"I, uh," Sam clears his throat, looking nervous, "I'm a divorce lawyer, if that's what you mean."

"Really?" Dean nearly cracks up, a huge smile splitting his face; he hadn't known that. "Bet _that's_ a cushy job!"

Sam chooses to ignore Dean.

"Boys, focus!" Bobby calls from where he has finished lighting the fireplace. "Sam, upstairs, heavy red hex box in the linen closet. Be careful."

"On it," Sam calls and hastily runs up the stairs, two at a time, leaving Dean to nervously watch over Bobby.

As soon as Sam is out of sight, a larger, white man appears between them and the kitchen. Dean doesn't know what it is about his face, but something in his grin makes him reach for his shot gun and pull the trigger without hesitation. Dean's not even sure if he actually hit him since the kickback from the gun sends him flying back, but he opens his eyes and the man's gone.

"Dean, the cutlery drawer in there has a false bottom. I need you to grab opium, wormwood, and hemlock."

"Did you say _opium?_" Dean squints his eyes, shoulder still smarting a little from his rifle.

"It's not the weirdest thing I've got around the house." Bobby eyes Dean warily, "Now get!" He points violently.

Dean scampers off, abashed, and doesn't hear it when the twins return, spitting how Bobby could have saved them. From the kitchen, he hesitates a few seconds before leveling the gun and firing at them, feeling his resolve strengthen even if he didn't quite believe what he was looking at.

Before Dean can make a self-confident remark about what a naturally good shot he is, the doors between the kitchen and library slide forcefully shut.

"Oh _shit_," Dean curses, racing towards Bobby.

"You okay?" Bobby calls through the doors.

"Yeah," Dean calls back, slamming his palm against the sealed threshold.

"Keep searching, then!" Bobby snarks, despite the severity of the situation.

"Fine," Dean yells and slides over to rummage through the drawer. He's able to locate the ingredients—conveniently labeled by the older man—and Dean panics as he hears a gunshot fire in the next room.

"Bobby?" he shouts, trying the doors again, not expecting it when they slide easily open.

"I'm fine," Bobby concedes, pointing to the salt line Sam created earlier. Dean sighs heavily, trying to release a knot forming in his belly.

There is a muffled gunshot upstairs before Sam returns, looking frazzled, with the box. He wants to ask but instead Dean hands his findings over to Bobby, who immediately throws a concoction together in a bowl. In the momentary stillness, the brothers reload their guns—Sam more quickly than Dean—and hold their breaths as Bobby begins to incant Latin into the bowl.

Glass throughout the house shatters and a screeching wind rips through the library as the spell draws near fruition, feeling as though a wrathful deity has been invoked by its sheer utterance. The salt line breaks and papers are trying to fly everywhere.

"Are you sure you translated it right?" Dean tries to yell over the wind, panicking when a blonde wraith appears behind Bobby, closer than they were able to get than before.

"Duck!" Sam yells, reacting faster than Dean could even process. He watches dumbly as his brother takes the shot and Bobby crouches, never once pausing in his recitation.

All at once, it seems like the ghosts realize that they can get closer to Bobby, stick their hands through his chest, since the salt barrier is broken from the wind. Sam yells at Dean, who is still watching the whole scene like it's just a movie, and throws a gun at him.

"Come _on_, Dean!" Sam takes aim and shoots right through the forehead of the black man. The blonde woman appears, staring at Dean like she is angry at him, and suddenly the fight becomes Dean's fight. It is easy to send bullets flying at her twisted face repeatedly as she manifests closer and closer to him.

Bobby's words stop and he haphazardly hurls the contents of the bowl in the fireplace. Dean watches, mystified, as it burns blue for a split second, the ghosts coming towards him completely forgotten as he's forced to close his eyes against the blinding light that pushes out from the fireplace and engulfs the room.

Silence falls like a heavy fog and Dean wrenches one eye open like he's expecting a gruesome cavalcade of zombies to be headed straight towards him. Instead, he is greeted by his brother and Bobby with very similar expressions on their faces. And for a second, they all pant and look at each other in various states of shock and disbelief, listening to the innocuous crackle of the steady burning fireplace.

"Well, I'd say that was a successful night," Dean finally breaks the silence with a cocky grin, holding his hand up for Sam to high five him. Sam gives his an incredulous look and Dean has forced to clap his hands together to save a little face.

"Time to hit the hay. Heh?" He laughs at himself and looks for a shred of approval from either of the other two.

"Well, I'd say we're lucky no one got _shot_," Bobby says, fingering a bullet hole near his head. "Where were you _aimin'_, kid?" he laughs when Dean has the good graces to look sheepish. "Guess we'd better call it a night. But in the morning, we're having _target_ practice." He points a finger at Dean but his eyes flick up to Sam momentarily.

The boys nod in agreement and, with that, the three of them turn to trudge silently up the stairs for the night.

…

Dean wakes up in the middle of the night, though he's not sure why; it's completely silent in his room. He lazily surveys the area before rolling over towards the window, where the silhouette of a man is outlined in silver moonlight. The angel.

"Cas?" he croaks.

"You handled the witnesses excellently." He speaks gravely and Dean is not awake enough for this conversation. He rubs his eyes and peers up at the odd face of the man in his bedroom.

"Did—did you know about all this?"

"I was...informed, yes." Castiel is slightly cagey. For some reason, Dean feels something stirring in him and he suddenly feels the need to jump from his bed and start a fight with Castiel jolt through his aching muscles.

"Then where _were_ you?" Dean says with a frown. "I called you and you didn't come. I thought you were a guardian or something. You know, halos and wings and sitting on your shoulder with sage words of advice." He swings his legs over the side of the bed and peers at Cas accusatorially.

"Dean," Cas says with measured patience, "angels are warriors, _soldiers_. We have more _pressing_ matters, bigger-picture concerns."

"Bigger-picture? Castiel," Dean says the name with contempt, now completely awake and on his feet, "People were _dying_ down here, being turned into pulp. How is that _not_ a major concern?"

"God works in—"

Dean interrupts, coming into Castiel's space to make his point. "Don't. Do _not_ say it."

The angel gives Dean a funny look, not entirely sure what he means.

"Just, ah—" Dean rubs a hand over his face, "was Bobby right? About the Apocalypse thing?"

"Why do you think we're here, now?"

"Look, _Buddy_, I don't know. I'm _new_ at this."

"Yes, Dean, I am aware. However, there are larger things approaching and we need to act."

"Like _what?_ What's coming?" Dean doesn't really feel like knowing but he is pretty sure he's obligated to ask.

"The Rising of the Witnesses is one of the sixty-six seals," Castiel pauses, but Dean says nothing so he continues. "The seals are like locks on the door."

"_The_ door?" Dean looks incredulous but moves back away from Castiel, "Which door would that be?"

"The door to Lucifer's cage in Hell." The angel squares Dean with a look like he might just shake Dean violently but Dean is far enough away that he feels comfortable he won't be stricken.

"Are you _kidding_ me?" Regret smacks Dean almost immediately and he claps an apologetic hand over his own mouth when he realizes he was yelling at Cas.

"Yes, Dean. There are angels, there are demons. God is my father and Lucifer…he is my brother."

"That's some fucked up family you got there, Cas-tee-el. But that doesn't explain—why would, who—who would break these _seals_, anyway?"

"Lilith," Castiel answers as though it is perfectly obvious.

"Don't tell me. Lilith is your cousin or something, right?"

"Well, if the metaphor stands, she is my niece—the first demon Lucifer ever created."

"Oh," Dean says, squashing down panic in his esophagus, "Shit."

"Indeed."

Dean blinks rapidly, trying to contain the overwhelming anxiety rising there in his throat, and the angel is gone again. He is left wondering if he just hallucinated the whole thing.

In the morning, Dean corners his brother.

"I talked to the angel last night," Dean informs him.

Sam can't help but laugh. "I don't think I'll _ever_ get used to you saying shit like that." He looks up at the ceiling.

"This is serious business, Sam. That 'Rising of the Witnesses' thing? That was one of sixty-six seals designed to break Lucifer out of a cage they've apparently got him locked up in in Hell."

"_Lucifer?_" Sam deadpans, "As in, the Devil?"

"Yeah, Sam. As in, the _damn devil_. This shit...it just got real."

"And you're _sure_ about this? It wasn't a dream or anything?"

"As sure as I'll ever be about any of this stuff." Dean shrugs, eyeballing his mostly soggy shredded wheat.

"Fair enough. So, what now?"

"I don't know. I guess we ask Bobby."

"We just gotta wait for him to get up.

…

Sam is proficient with the gun. He consistently hits skeet and tin cans from fifty meters. After three days of Dean feeling incompetent with his own guns, he tells Bobby to forget it, to go do his own cases and let them rest for a few days.

"Don't be a bitch, Dean," Bobby tries to talk Dean out of it but he winds up locking himself into his room just like he did when he was twelve and Bobby wouldn't tell him where his dad had really gone. His only real entertainment is his dad's old journal, filled with the weird and bizarre. On one page, there is a fascinating depiction of a creature called a wendigo. It is a well worn page and whenever he sets the book down, it often falls open to that drawing. He can't help running his fingertips over the impressions left by the heavy handed pen. He misses his father in those moments.

The second day of Bobby's absence, Dean hears Sam go to his bedroom upstairs. He slowly opens his door—wary of that one angle it always seems to creak at—and sneaks down into the kitchen for food and possibly to use Sam's computer for a Facebook check.

He hopes Sam's gone to take a nap as he shakes the computer mouse to see if it's on. It displayed the lock screen. He sucked in a deep breath and clicked it, hoping that Sam had a password that was easy enough for him to guess. Instead, the computer opened right up, displaying the internet browser saying it couldn't connect.

The stairs creaked and Dean whirled around to see Sam with a tooth brush in his mouth. "Internet connection is pretty poor up here. What were you doing anyway?"

"Was gonna check my Facebook."

Sam snorts out a small laugh.

"What? Don't you have one? I'm sure all your lawyer friends—" Dean stops when he sees Sam's face change, cloud over. "Oh. Okay…Sam, is there something you want to tell me?"

"Like what?" Sam keeps his face frustratingly neutral.

"Like how you're so good with guns,"

"I practice."

"Not like that, Sam. You're amazing. Like, way more than you have any right to be. You don't miss."

"I _know_," Sam stresses, "I practice."

"Fine, okay. Fine." Dean steps away from the computer. "I'll be in my room, then."

"You want some dinner?" Sam offers and Dean knows he's too hungry to say no.

"Fine."

Sam smiles.

…

Bobby finally comes home.

"I've got a case for you boys, a few states over. Ellen pointed me towards it. I was thinking about looking into it but it seems straightforward enough for you two."

"What does that mean 'straightforward'? What is it?" Dean furrows his brows, turning back towards Bobby.

"Looks like ghosts, and not the 'Witness' type either. You boys have at least the basics for that one."

"Yeah, I think we can handle it," Sam says, a fond smile curving his lips.

"Okay, but there's one more thing I need you boys to do before I let you go."

"Oh yeah?" Dean asks with a smirk, "What's that?"

"Follow me," Bobby says, already turning towards the house.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

"So, what? You needed us to look at a Satanic symbol?" Dean says, trying to be funny.

"No, ya dipshit. It _protects_ against demon possession. As long as it's on your skin, you can't be possessed."

"So, you want us to get this _tattooed_ or something?" Sam asks, amused eyebrow quirked.

"Bright kid," Bobby says to Dean and Sam visibly becomes frustrated but doesn't rebuke him. "It's just a precaution and it'll make me feel a hell of a lot better."

"All right," Dean says, clapping his hands together, "Whatever you say, boss man."

…

Dean is changing his bandaging on his chest over the new tattoo when Castiel pops into the bathroom behind him.

"_Fuck_," Dean's eyes flutter closed in panic as his heart stutters, hand flying up instinctively to cover his face.

"Hello." Cas says, ignoring Dean's physical reaction to him.

"Yeah, yeah. Hi, Cas." Dean relaxes marginally, trying to fix the last bit of the bandage to his chest.

"You should put a shirt on."

"I was going to," Dean side eyes the angel, "Then you showed up." He moves to pull his shirt back on. "Happy?"

"Dean," Cas ignores the rhetorical question and pushes Dean's worn leather jacket into his hands, "you have to stop it..."

"What? Stop wha—" but he is interrupted by the angel pushing his two fingers against his forehead. He wakes up, alone, on a bus stop bench and before he has a chance to gain his bearings, a heavyset police officer is telling him to sleep somewhere else or they'll have to bring him down to the station. _I don't look that ratty, do I?_ His jacket is covering him in his supine position on the wood. _What the fuck has this angel done?_ He thinks dazedly as he heads towards a small diner beckoning to him from down the block.

He pushes through the door and slumps down next to a dark haired fellow with a newspaper. He feels comfortable, briefly.

"Say, where are we, exactly?" he tries to smile at the stranger.

"Lawrence," the man says, not even looking up from the paper, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"Kansas?" Dean feels the surprise course through him at the prospect. Couldn't be.

"Rough night?" The man raises an eyebrow at Dean.

"You could say that," Dean tries to cover his ass, ordering a slice of apple pie when the waitress interrupts them. "So, anything interesting going on in the world?" Dean tries to rekindle conversation.

The man folds the paper back up and throws it on the counter for Dean's eyes to search over. 1973. Huh.

"Winchester!" A man calls from over Dean's shoulder and the flight instinct in him flares, he means to duck his head and sneak out the back but the man next to him answers for him.

"Sheriff!" He calls back and Dean realizes like stab in the spinal cord that he wasn't the one being addressed.

"Fuck," he mutters to himself and slinks out the front when his father begins a jaunty discourse with the sheriff.

Dean staggers into the street, not sure what he's doing or if what he's just seen is even _real_. He rounds a corner and there is the angel.

"Cas. Jesus _Christ_. If you keep this shit up, you're probably gonna give me a heart attack and then I'm going to die from cardiac arrest in fucking _nineteen seventy-three_." Dean exclaims, giving Castiel the crazy eye.

"I would not allow you stay dead, Dean."

Dean pulls a face. "So, you'd let me have the heart attack and _then_ resuscitate me? Yeah, fuck you, buddy. Take me home. How about that?"

"I think you are missing the point of this exercise."

"_Exercise?_ You've got to be fucking _kidding_. Do you know that I just saw my own father when he was _my_ age? That isn't _right_, Cas."

"There is a purpose—"

"Oh yeah," Dean interrupts, "And what would that be, All Mighty Castiel?"

"Do not refer to me that way." Cas' face hardens in a way that sends real fear through Dean's gut.

"All right, all right. Fine. What is this, then?"

"What do you think it is?"

"I'm not here to play the Oedipus to your Sphinx. You fucking tell me. Is this even real?"

"Incredibly."

"How the hell did we _get_ here?"

"Time is, well, we can bend it on occasion. Though, it is not an easy task."

"Well, could you _un_-bend it then?"

"No, Dean. I was instructed to bring you here for a _purpose_." Castiel's voice is firm but there is a softness in his face as he looks away.

"You're not really giving me any answers..."

"I've already explained. You have to _stop_ it."

"_Stop_. What?" Dean says, feeling murderous. There is a loud screeching and a round of honking in the distance that catches Dean's immediate attention, just a fraction of a second as he cranes his neck to catch a glimpse of the incident like he always would at home, and then the angel is gone.

"Fuck," Dean curses under his breath and then hobbles after his father when he sees the young man leaving the diner with his newspaper tucked under his arm.

…

After a few days of having his ass handed to him by his mother, his paternal grandfather, and a particularly nasty demon with yellow eyes and a taste for some cryptic babble about his brother being _special_, Dean is finally wakes up in his bed at Bobby's with the angel sitting on the foot of the bed.

"Okay," Dean sits up, grateful that he doesn't feel groggy, "so there were about_ a million_ things wrong with what just happened but at least two of them—"

Castiel interrupts. "I know, Dean. Your mother still made that deal with the demon, just like she was _supposed_ to. And, like you probably surmised, that is the demon who is responsible for her death; he came to collect."

"Cas, I couldn't stop it...any of it. Why would you tell me—"

"It was a specifically designed exercise. You cannot change destiny. We aimed to give you all the information we have. With your brand of stubbornness, we figured this was the best teaching method."

"But what about Sam?" Dean tries to get the conversation back on his terms.

"Why didn't we bring Sam along?

"No. All that shit that demon said about Sam? It didn't make any sense. Do you know about that?"

"Yes, Dean, we do. And that's why we couldn't send him with you."

"But this definitely involves him, too."

"He's too close to this, Dean. He is going to need external help. It's going to be up to you—"

Dean stands now, feeling he has some leverage standing over the angel.

"This is my brother, we're talking about. I need to know what that demon was _talking_ about and I need to know how to tell Sam so we can fix it. And you're _going_ to tell me." Dean says, jabbing down at the angel's chest for emphasis.

"Dean, sit down and I'll explain."

"I am _not_ sitting down! You're trying to make me complacent and I will _not_ calm down!"

"Fine," the angel claps his hands together, in a gesture that is so human-like it unnerves Dean, and stands.

"When your mother made that deal," Castiel begins, looking down at his hands that are still clasped together in a position that looks an awful lot like piety, "she agreed to let the demon call on her in ten year's time. All he wanted was an invitation. And when she agreed, she was allowing him into her home and giving him access to her second born son on the night he became six months old."

Dean is staring at him, waiting for him to continue even though he looks vaguely uncomfortable, a horrible sinking feeling in his gut. _Sammy_.

"We know that Azazel gave your brother special abilities. But we're not sure why, what his goal was. He went to great lengths to cover it up before his death."

"Wait, are you _fucking_ kidding me?" Dean is pushing a hand through his hair, sitting himself down on the bed and staring at his feet. "You've got to be _kidding_. This is a joke, right? _Please_ tell me you're joking." There is panic rising in Dean and he can feel the bile in the back of his throat. "I've put up with a lot of shit the past few days. I can even deal with demons being a real thing. But you're saying one's got to Sam? No fucking way. Sam's a lawyer. End of."

The angel moves over him and places a hand on his shoulder; the nausea melts away blessedly instantaneously.

Dean feels his eyes go wide as he stares up at Castiel, somewhat stunned at the effect.

"I was not finished, Dean." The angel explains instead of giving Dean the answer he's looking for.

Dean just nods, unable to ask for anything else.

"This is the reason your brother had visions."

"Sam? Sam had visions?" Dean's voice is considerably softer now. "And he didn't tell me?"

"He has not told you?" Castiel's eyebrows knit together in what could be construed as concern on anyone else.

Dean shakes his head in reply, finding watching his own ringing hands be quite interesting.

"You must speak with him, then. Your brother must be headed off at the pass or it will only get worse from here."

Dean nods slowly, more to himself. "But I thought you said destiny..." his eyes dart up.

"It cannot be changed. But we're not sure where Sam's road leads, yet."

As Dean's confusion rises, the frustration flares heavy in his limbs, right down to his fingertips.

"Then why did my _mom_—my _dad_, too—have to _die?_"

"It was their destiny..."

"This is _bullshit_, Cas. Serious bullshit. You're telling me that some people just have to get the shaft when it comes to _destiny?_" Dean pulls an ugly face. "That's bullshit. Not everything can just be explained away as 'destiny.' It's not a _real_ explanation."

"Not everything in life is fair, Dean. You have to accept that."

"I _can't_ accept that. Everyone deserves a chance—"

"Dean," Castiel cuts him short, "if you do not stop your brother, _we_ will." It feels like there is an echo in the room, thousands of voices resounding on just two words. Dean feels no fear, like he knows he should.

"Stop him from _what?_" He demands.

"Why don't you talk to him first?" Castiel moves away and Dean looks back down at his hands, just in time to hear the rush of air that tells him the angel is gone.

…

"I can't believe I'm sending you two on a case by yourselves."

"We'll be _fine_, Bobby," Sam assures with that expression on his face that makes everyone believe him, "We learned from the best."

It is obvious that Bobby is sold, just by Sam's face alone.

"Well," Bobby mutters, "Why don't y'all go pop the trunk? I have a few weapons I want to loan ya for the job." Bobby says, holding a canvass duffle bag with clanking metal inside.

Dean looks skeptical but digs the keys out of his pocket to open the Impala's trunk. It makes a noise of protest and Bobby reaches in to lift up the false bottom he knows is there. Dean is fairly taken aback at the piles of guns and knives already stashed inside.

"What—" Dean hears himself start.

"Don't tell me you didn't know that was there..." Sam says with a disarming smile.

"I...never _needed_ the trunk for anything. All my stuff fits in the back seat..."

Sam laughs some more and Bobby just rolls his eyes.

"I guess we'll be all right then, Bobby." Sam says and claps a hand on Dean's shoulder as he continues to stare at the equipment.

"Just make sure you've both got some flashlights..."

"Bobby?" A gruff voice comes from around the corner and all three ears pick up; they recognize it but they don't believe it.

The bearded face appears and Dean doesn't know what to do with himself. He'd seen a much younger version of that face only a few days prior. Before that, the last time he'd seen his father's face was at the funeral, which set a nicely sized stone in the pit of stomach at the thought. But in Dean's experiences—though they'd grown recently—people are supposed to _stay_ dead once they've died? _Demons_. Dean had read in John's journal about his procedure for summoning a demon and making a deal with it. There is no reason one couldn't bring someone back to life.

"Dad?" he hears croak out of his throat.

"Oh, hell no." Bobby mutters to himself and shoves Dean behind him. Dean can only watch from the ground as Bobby—ever-prepared and ever-paranoid—brandishes a gleaming knife that he subsequently slashes into John's flesh on his exposed arm as the limb comes up to protect the face.

John recoils but doesn't protest, clapping a hand over the laceration.

"Bobby?" Dean questions, clumsily getting to his feet, unsure of what just happened.

"Just a test," Bobby explains, wiping his blade on his pants and retreating a little farther into the garage.

"A test for what?" Sam pipes in, having staid rigidly still and completely silent during the exchange.

"Demons," John answers matter-of-factly, moving a step closer.

"Routine procedure," Bobby says, a hand slinking around a small metal container lying on a shelf in the open garage. John's eyes follow Bobby's movements but he doesn't move, looking prepared for when a splash of holy water collides with face.

"Satisfied, Bobby?" John asks, rather unamused.

"For now," Bobby grumbles, eyes squinting, but lets the subject of demons drop.

There is hard silence as all four pairs of eyes travel to the faces of the others standing around them. Dean has a moment where he feels like he's stepped back from the situation and is watching it from above.

Finally, John speaks.

"Why am I alive, Bobby?" he says, voice not much more than a whisper, watching his tremoring hands move up in front of his face.

"You think," Bobby's voice catches but otherwise he doesn't let on, "You think _I_ know?" Bobby's eyes go wide, "I was hoping _you_ could enlighten _me_."

"You didn't—?"

"No. Wasn't me." Bobby looks regretful and Dean doesn't really understand the gaps in their discourse.

"Didn't _what?_" Dean asks, curiosity itching under his skin like an impulse.

"You've got so much to learn," Bobby rolls his eyes, even it doesn't look light-hearted, and ushers everyone back towards the house. "Come on, guys."

…

"Do you think this has anything to do with the angels?" Dean asks, his mind lingering on the trench coat-wearing angel with starry eyes, his hand wrapped comfortably around a sweating beer bottle.

"If we're not looking at a revenant, it's possible," Bobby says, his beer resting mostly still full in his hand, his shoulders tense and other hand at the dagger on his hip, "only question is 'why?'"

"I guess we can ask Dean's angel. See if he knows anything," Sam says, finding a little humor in the situation. He had been ignoring his beer, feeling uncomfortable with it, and staring at John for the duration of their conversation, unable to really abide by the fact that he was sitting at the table with him. Sam had flown back to California for the funeral and seen the body in the coffin with his own eyes.

"_My_ angel?" Dean rears his head up, wanting to spit out how all Castiel seemed to talk about was 'Dean's brother.' "Why's it gotta be _my_ angel?"

"He followed you around for a week, Dean," Sam counters, the laughter in his voice becoming more and more pronounced as he watches Dean become more flustered.

"Angel, singular?" John asks, quirking an eyebrow, the rest of his face remaining stolid.

"Yeah, Dean's got himself an angel." Sam is chuckling now.

"Why is that so _funny?_" Dean demands, leaning forward, ignoring the fact that he felt like he was back in grade school and fighting with his brother.

Sam just shrugs and sits back, watching the storm he engineered.

"_Bobby?_" John directs the question at his friend, ignoring his bickering children.

Bobby just kind of shrugs, eyes on the tinted bottle in his hand. "Looks like Dean's got himself an angel. Guess he's important to the man upstairs. And maybe you are, too. Don't know much else that is powerful enough to pull a man from the pits of hell."

"Hell?" Dean chimes in, forgetting to glare at his brother.

There is a thickness in the air when neither of the older men acknowledge the question

"Well, then let's talk to this '_angel_.'" John says, leaning forward to grip his own beer, eyeing Dean meaningfully.

"Dean, tell him what you told me." Bobby nods his head towards John in supplication.

"No pressure at all," Dean laughs nervously and rolls his eyes to try to look like he doesn't think the whole situation is a big deal. He blows out a labored breath and plunges into the situation about the sixty-six seals

"Doesn't seem like we can do anything at this exact moment." John claps his hands together in a gesture that Dean recognizes from his own habits. He actually picked up a mannerism from his father, despite the infrequency which he saw the man. "Why not go on a hunt while we wait?" He smiled brightly, taking in the sight of his two sons at the table, thinking like hunters.

"I was about to send the boys on a ghost hunt, actually." Bobby says, gripping his beer just a little tighter. "It'd probably be _better_ for all of us if you went along, anyway."

"Excellent." John claps his hands together again and downs the rest of his beer swiftly.

"Way to get back on the horse, Dad," Dean encourages, excitement starting to creep into his stomach and hands now that his dad's there, eager to show them the ropes of hunting like he should have done in the first place.

….

There is an incredible rush when Dean burns the bones of a particularly malicious ghost—he has spent his entire adult life _fixing_ things, repairing them, making them better and now he gets to destroy. The spectre dissipates a satisfying blaze, screaming and cursing after trying to choke Sam to death.

"That was _awesome!_" Dean hollers, pumping a fist into the air. The woman's remains were in the basement of a condemned house. Getting in found Dean in his first breaking and entering, first real misdemeanor of his life. He was like a spy, ducking and bobbing and keeping his fingerprints off anything.

"Don't. Touch. Anything." John had hissed through his teeth at his boys, even after he'd watched like a puffed peacock as Sam successfully picked the lock in thirty seconds flat.

Bobby had been right about it being straightforward. They immediately did the preliminary research on a library computer and spent a few more hours making use of older public records. The house was easy to locate and sneak into—after they parked their car a block down and walked to it to avoid suspicion. The fragile cement of the basement walls went easily and quickly to reveal the imprisoned skeleton. The woman's ghost had been furious at the disturbance and knocked Sam around before Dean could finally get the matches lit and thrown on the lighter fluid-soaked skeleton.

"And not a moment too soon," Sam wheezes from the floor. "God, I think I got a concussion." He touches the back of his skull before pulling his fingers up to his face and yank on them in a way that Dean recognizes as a sign that they're probably jammed.

"Quit your whining, Sam. But really, that _wasn't_ soon enough," John says, pointedly towards his eldest son.

A quick look washes over both brothers but it dissipates as they wipe at the soot on their faces, their breathing labored. It was much too much to expect John to behave any differently than he ever had.

…

"So, how do I _do_ this? Just Google 'weird shit' or something?" Sam asks, staring at the Google homepage. John just gives him an un-amused look that says he knows Sam is just taking the piss.

The three of them know that Sam is good with computers and search engines. He's sort of a genius like that.

"You can figure it out, college boy." John says instead.

"It's almost Halloween. Don't you think there's probably gonna be a _rash_ of people pranking their neighbors?"

"Ideally, Sam, we're looking for _deaths_. Unusual deaths. Like, the Witnesses. That sort of thing." John looks ready to hit Sam.

"Got it," Sam concedes quickly, and starts clicking at the keyboard.

On the other side of the room, Dean pointedly ignores his father and brother, ignore the violence in his father's face, in favor of being enraptured by the _quite masculine_ wiles of Doctor Sexy M.D and his sexy cowboy boots.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

"I think I found something," Sam announces. John is half asleep on one of the beds and Dean is out like a light. Sam has to get up and slap Dean's face, though he doesn't look too broken up about it when he laughs and blocks himself from the attempted punch Dean swings at him. John does not intervene.

"What was _that_ for?" Dean asks, giving Sam the stink eye and covering a hand over the place he'd just been hit like a petulant kid.

"I _found_ something." Sam sobers up.

"What is it?" Dean rasps, sitting up and looking over to his groggy father on the other bed.

"Well, looks like this small town in Missouri. This man was found with a razor blade in his stomach, one in his throat, and two on the floor."

"What makes that supernatural?" Dean asked skeptically, "Like you said, people were probably just probably playing an _incredibly_ mean trick."

"Well, it's all in the small details. How could someone swallow so many razor blades? We're talking like this," Sam gestures the size with his thumb and forefinger based on the description in the article, "If you read the article, it says that the crime seems highly improbable and there are no leads whatsoever. I guess it just sounds..._fishy_ to me."

"I don't know—" Dean starts to protest.

"Dean, I think your brother has a point. We're really not far, probably worth at least looking in to."

"How—" Dean is interrupted again with a silencing hand from John.

"Really, Dean. Let's see how good your brother's research skills are." John winks at Sam who gives him a tight-lipped smile in return. "But first, I need to show you boys a few tricks of the trade. Get your all access passes into any crime scene or to interview any witness."

…

"_Monkey_ suits and fake FBI IDs? Are you serious? No one's gonna fucking fall for this bullshit…"

"What can I say," John shrugs, deftly fitting the newly photocopied pictures into a set of badges from a box of spares in the trunk like he hadn't been away a day, "I've been doing this a long time. You get good at photocopying."

"These IDs say Bonham, Jones, and Plant. Do you _seriously_ think no one will catch on? Plus, _three_ FBI agents on _one_ case?"

"Somebody can sit in the car if you don't like it. Plus, we'll split town before they get around to looking for us if this goes south. Okay, Dean?"

"This is all real comforting," Dean says sarcastically, crossing his arms and leaning back into the seat.

"You stay in the car then. Me and Sam will talk to Mrs. Wallace."

"Fine," Dean cranks up the radio to spite his father as he waits for the other two to exit the vehicle.

…

When John and Sam come back out of the house, John takes the front seat and holds up a tiny canvas bag.

"What's'at?" Dean slurs, looking at it with blurry eyes, pretending he hadn't fallen asleep.

"Hex bag. Looks like we're dealing with a witch this time. So, I guess your brother's research isn't too bad after all, huh?" John explains as Dean starts to pull the car away from the house.

"Guess not," he shrugs, not actually sure where he's headed.

"Drop Sam off at the hotel. You and me are gonna go ask about Mr. Wallace, see if we can dig up why someone might want him dead."

Dean nods and makes a u-turn at the next light back towards the Motel 8.

…

"Here, try this," John says, handing Sam an old leather-bound book he pulled from his stash in the trunk.

"Oh-_kay_," Sam says, looking up at it from his computer screen, "What _is_ it?"

"It might help," John says, giving a shrug and slumping down onto his bed.

"Did you guys find any...connection between the two victims?" Sam asks, instead of pursuing the issue of the mysterious book.

"Not a thing. Both are as white bread as white bread gets. We're going to have to start looking for other motives besides revenge." John looks meaningfully at the book in Sam's hands, changing the subject silently.

Sam just nods.

…

"It's...it's a _spell_." Sam announces to the room as a whole. Dean looks up from Sam's computer and John sits up from his half awake stupor as Sam reads the passage about the three sacrifices leading up to the final harvest. "Based on the fact that the hex bag had the Celtic coin, I'm going with the Celtic calendar on this one. Final harvest is October 31st, Halloween."

"I'm listening," John interjects, as though Sam needed to impress him.

"I think the witch is summoning a demon." Sam's voice is cautious.

"_Wow!_ More fucking demons. This just keeps getting _better_ and _better_," Dean exclaims, sitting back in the uncomfortable motel chair.

"It's not just _any_ demon, Dean," Sam continues, "Looks like the witch is summoning one called a _Sam-hain_."

"Whoa, whoa. Did little Boy Genius just say 'Sam-hain'?"

"Yeah..." Sam says impatiently, one eyebrow disappearing under his bangs.

"Oh my gah—it's _Sow_-un. Didn't you meet any Wiccans at that fancy liberal college of yours? Or at the very least, watch any Halloween movies, ever?"

"Did _you_ know any Wiccans?" Sam asks, eyes narrowing in concern.

"Yes, I dated one. Accidentally." Dean's eyes move to the side, trying to decide if he wants to give more information or not.

Both of the other Winchesters give Dean a sour look before pressing on to more important matters.

"_Rubes_," Dean mutters to himself before Sam jumps back in to an explanation of just why _exactly_ it is an incredibly bad thing that Samhain be raised. It sounded like the motherload of all motherloads—aside from Satan, himself. Demons and ghosts and zombies and any other awful creepy-crawly, dragging themselves from the pits of hell to torture and devour the poor souls who have the misfortune of being topside should this particular summoning be successful.

"So, basically, we've got to figure this shit out _before_ midnight tomorrow night?" Dean says, hoping Sam can't see how nervous he is when he speaks.

"That's the general idea, yeah." Sam's voice is not particularly hopeful.

…

"Put your hands where I can see them!" John shouts as he rushes into their room, his gun already brandished at the strangers by the window.

"Dad! Dad, that's the _angel!_"

John's head turns just slightly, enough to cut his eyes incredulous at Dean. "What? _That_ guy is an angel?"

Dean jerks his head to the side in the way he does, reluctant to answer before his eyes land on the black man standing next to Castiel.

"But I have no fucking clue who that guy is." His arm swings up in a vague gesture to the other man.

"This is my brother, Uriel," Castiel pipes up, moving towards the Winchesters.

"For an angel," John says to Castiel's face, "You're rather underwhelming,"

"For the Righteous Man, you're rather underwhelming, yourself," Uriel speaks for his brother, stepping forward defensively.

Dean can't help the small bark of laughter that escapes him before he has the good sense to stay quiet as Uriel moves menacingly next to Castiel.

"Righteous Man?" John squints at Uriel, still holding his gun defensively.

"That would be _you_, John," Uriel's smile is more like a sneer.

"I got that, thanks," John's face is ugly, "What does it mean?"

Uriel laughs and before he can say anything Castiel jumps in, looking what might be the angelic equivalent of nervous.

"Have you located the witch?" He angles his body towards Dean.

"How'd you—?" Dean tries to ask but Castiel interrupts.

"Do you know the _identity_ of the witch?" Castiel says instead.

"We've got at least that much." Sam says, eyes wide as they flicker between the two angels. Either one of them could conceivably destroy the hotel room in the felt so inclined, yet Uriel is staying silent while Castiel speaks though he is frowning intensely.

"Her location?" Castiel looks hopeful now.

"Not yet." Dean feels like he let the angel down.

"Unfortunate." Castiel mutters almost to himself, reaching out to place a hex bag in Dean's palm, hand lingering around the bag for an extra second. "We found this in the walls. The witch at least knows who _you_ are and where you are."

"Fuck." John moves forward to snatch the bag from Dean like holding it will somehow negate the witch's knowledge of their location.

"We know her objective, about Samhain," Castiel says.

"_See?_ At least _somebody_ knows how to pronounce it correctly!" Dean cries, knowing he was really stepping out of line but having faith that Castiel will forgive him of this small trespass.

"This Summoning must not happen," Castiel continues, undeterred. "It must be prevented by any means necessary." He turns, giving his brother a meaningful look.

"What does _that_ mean?" Dean asks, feeling his stomach sink as he sees the eerily pleased look on the other angel's face when he speaks.

"Uriel is what one might term as a 'specialist'..." Castiel's face is grave when he trails off.

"What type of _specialist__?_" Dean demands like he is the official middle man between the Winchesters and angels, like Castiel is his angel, his pet, his responsibility and when the angels behave poorly they reflect that back onto Dean.

"I have a habit of…erasing messes," Uriel's lips curl into a facsimile of a grin.

Dean sees Sam's face fall out of the corner of his eye; Sam caught on quickly.

"I suggest the three of you leave town, immediately." Castiel confirms Sam's suspicion.

"Are you seriously telling me you're going the _nuclear option?_" Dean shouts, head snapping to Sam for reinforcement.

"These are _innocent lives _we're talking about, here!" Sam jumps in for Dean, chest puffing despite the fear Dean can see in the corners of Sam's eyes.

"You must have misunderstood us," Uriel steps forward, coming between Sam and Castiel, "The Summoning _will not_ happen. We are putting an end to it _now_ and you three will leave." The angel spits, electricity sparking furiously in the atmosphere.

"You must have misunderstood _us_. We're not going anywhere," John grits out, still clutching the gun like it would even hope to provide some sort of safety.

"This town will be leveled within the hour. We cannot spare the time to track down the witch at this point. The seal can _not_ be broken." Castiel answers and Dean feels his gut sink. He doesn't know why he expected Castiel to be on his side; he's an angel.

"No!" John exclaims, moving towards Castiel and Uriel puts himself between John and his younger brother.

"We cannot waste time," Castiel apologizes, regret tingeing his voice and Dean perks up a little. He thinks he can get to the angel.

"Over a _thousand_ people live in this town." Sam interjects, "You can't just _waste_ them all." Dean loves the conviction in his brother, the set of his jaw in the face of preternatural beings.

"This is a question of one thousand versus _billions_. Which do you think is heaven's priority?" Uriel spits, eyes narrowing. The room is hot and Dean wants to take his jacket off. Uriel feels like fire.

"Cas," Dean pleads, "We can take care of this, we can find the witch and stop this. Give us a chance." He knows he looks desperate but Castiel has an open heart.

"Winchester," Uriel turns and glares down at Dean, "we will _drag_ you three, kicking and screaming, from here if you do not leave _now_." And he means to intimidate Dean but somehow Castiel's presence gives Dean the push he needs to challenge the archangel.

"No. No you won't. We're staying here and there is nothing you can do about it." He crosses his arms firmly, feeling like an elementary schooler, and thinks maybe he sees Castiel smirking as he turns his face away.

"Do you intend to test me, boy?" Uriel bellows and Dean thinks the angel an echo inside Dean's head but he still does not relent.

"Actually, yeah. I do. I think you need me. I think you need _us_. You're not gonna lay a finger on any of us. I think we're kind of high on the Man Upstairs' list." Dean's gaze challenges the angel and he is sure that if Uriel tries to move towards Dean, Castiel will stop him.

"I suggest you make haste." Castiel says in a voice that urges them all to leave before Uriel really goes nuclear.

The three Winchesters take the hint and hightail it out of the hotel room, immediately jumping into the Impala.

"You know, those angels were kinda assholes." John says from the back seat.

Dean laughs, hoping it doesn't sound frantic."Kinda." He starts the engine.

"That one, though. He's definitely _your_ angel." John says with an air of humor that Dean does not appreciate. He feels his eyes narrow but says nothing, waiting for some sort of directions from Sam.

…

John pries his iron axe out of the skull of a zombie before swinging the head of it into a ghost that is trying to tear his throat out when Dean finally breaks from the ranks of zombie and ghost fighting to back Sam up against the _Big Bad_ demon guy. Sam is just around the corner but Dean finds his legs locking, his whole body shutting down when he sees an incredible gray smoke spilling from the art teacher's mouth and down into the ground at his feet at the beck and call of Sam's angry fist. Dean knows that Sam saw him, sees the terrible look of realization on his little brother's smooth face. John rounds the corner, the noise pollution gone to a deafening silence. It's over, just like that and John saw none of what Sam was doing.

"Good work," he directs curtly at his youngest and makes back towards the car.

The car ride is taught with silence as Dean jerks the Impala around back to the hotel, where he is half expecting to see the two angel faces giving them sad or disappointed looks. But the angels aren't there and it isn't long before John passes out on his bed and Sam tacitly agrees to the pull out couch.

"Don't get comfortable," Dean whispers lowly, glancing over to make sure John is still asleep. "I need to talk to you. Outside."

"Okay," Sam sighs, knowing exactly what it's going to be about.

"What the _literal_ fuck, Sam?" Dean starts in, leaning against the Impala's body. "Like, seriously, that was some magic hoodoo shit right there." Dean pushes a hand through his short hair, looking down at his shoes, "What the actual fuck? When were you even gonna mention this? 'Cause seriously, I'm not buying for _one second_ that you're _new_ to this hunting thing. That was some hocus pocus magic. You _had_ to have learned that somewhere!"

"Calm down, Dean." Holds his hands up like he might grab Dean's shoulders and give him a light shake for a reality check, eyebrows knitted together and Dean knows he'll let it go when he sees Sam's dark eyes.

"_Calm down?_ How the hell do you expect me to calm down, Sammy? What did you even _do_ to that demon? That smokey stuff…" his eyes are somewhere over Sam's left shoulder now.

"That's what demons actually look like. They're not corporeal. They need a body, a host and I…I exorcised it. Without hurting the host."

"'Corporeal.' Are you trying to distract me with big words? Sam, you do realize that that's not normal human behavior, right?"

"Dealing with _demons_ isn't exactly normal human behavior, either, Dean." Sam frowns, knowing he's made his point, "Yet, here you are," Sam brings his face closer, trying to catch Dean's eyes like with a small child.

"I didn't even want to fucking know about them! This is all 'cause that trench coat asshole was following me around. I just wanted to stay home and watch some fucking TV."

"I didn't want you to know they existed either, Dean, but it really wasn't my choice and now here we are."

"Yeah, now here we are." Dean pulls a face, crosses his arms, "How did _you_ wind up here, though? Did a feathery asshole in business casuals follow you around, too?"

"Nah. I got jumped by a pack of them in New York. These two demons busted into the apartment. I was so surprised and underprepared that they would have definitely killed me. If it wasn't for Ruby—"

"Ruby?" Dean's eyes go wide. Don't trust women named Ruby. It's nearly always an alias. And Sammy owes his life to someone named Ruby.

"Yeah, Ruby. She saved my life. Technically, she's a demon but—"

"Technically?" Dean finds himself shouting, unable to control it, "She either is or she isn't? I don't see much middle ground here…" Dean frowns. "Does that mean you've been seeing her a lot?" He knows he's made a correct assumption when Sam looks away briefly, somewhere over Dean's right shoulder.

"We've been hunting together. She's been teaching me a lot. Bobby too."

"I knew it!"

Sam's eyes widen at Dean's outburst.

"So, what exactly _is_ it that you do? How are you _doing_ it?" Dean's eyes go wide and he is looking off into the middle distance. "More importantly, _why_ are you doing it?"

"Demons, they possess living people—real people with real lives and real families—and use them to _kill_ other human beings. You do the math."

"Man, that's sick." Dean makes a face, looking directly at Sam, "God, I fucking _hate_ demons. I seriously wish those fucking things didn't exist at all."

Sam chuckles dryly. "At this point," his eyebrows raise, "You're preaching to the choir. But, you know, that's all part of their deal. They aren't supposed to be cuddly or do good deeds daily. I guess that's why it's so important that I exorcise them the way I do. It spares the people being possessed, saves lives."

"But, still, Sam..." Dean looks kind of hurt, "you've been playing me. You knew about this shit the whole time and you pretended to be shocked when I told you about the angel and you lied when I asked you about the gun..."

"You can imagine I was kind of embarrassed about the whole thing." Sam eyes roll skyward, unable to stand his brother's gaze on him.

"It's me, dude. Why didn't you just _tell_ me, Sammy?" Dean tries to quash the hurt settling low in his stomach where he was starting to doubt how much he trusted Sam.

"Yeah, how would I have brought that up? 'Hey, Dean. I'm having some trouble. I've been having visions of people dying and I can move things with my mind. And oh yeah, when I drink demon blood I can exorcise demons with my mind, too!' I don't think that really would have gone over well." Sam barks out an unpleasant laugh.

"Wait, did you just say you're _drinking_ demon blood?" Dean's voice rises in pitch and his eyes bug out of his face, "And visions?"He pauses in thought, "Castiel actually mentioned the visions…" He says more to himself, "Dude, all you had to do was pick up the phone, Sam! I would have dropped everything and you could have told me in person, showed me. It's really that simple."

"No, Dean, it really, really isn't. I had dropped out of school, I was homeless. I wasn't ready to let you see that." Sam meets Dean's eyes now and Dean feels panic at the confrontation there. It's like Sam just admitted to enjoying being pissed on during sex and was caught in the act; he can't deny it anymore after that. "You didn't know what was going on. I didn't know Bobby knew what was going on. I knew about demons...but angels too? I _was _surprised, Dean. Okay? I wasn't on that front."

"Omission is a form of lying and I know you know you were keeping the _homeless_ thing from me. Christ." Dean says, but his voice sounds weak. He thinks about how he felt, standing in the pouring rain with all of his earthly possessions ruined and how small he really felt. Sam had to feel like a loser for having to drop out of school. "Does that mean you aren't with Jessica anymore?"

"Dean, do you really think that's an appropriate topic now?"

"Okay, yeah, you're right." Dean can't help but stare at his brother's young face, "But, at this point, I'm pretty sure we're in this shit together. Like, for the long haul."

Sam barks out another laugh, the kind that happens when you're about to cry but you're best friend is right there crack dry fucking jokes. His eyes travel up to the sky, as if looking for a sign, and waiting for the tears to dry a little. "I guess so."

…

"So, you finally spoke with your brother?" Castiel says, appearing on the park bench next to Dean. Dean doesn't give anything away at the angel's surprise appearance.

"Yeah," Dean admits, watching the children and parents pass in blissful unawareness. They missed a fucking miracle, thinking he was just another raggedy stranger looking to molest their children.

"Dean, I know what you think of me..." Castiel starts and Dean is a little startled by how much the angel reminds him of his own human little brother in that moment, imagines the person the blue eyes really belong to and something tugs at his heart. That body is a host to something as frightening as a demon.

"Did you have to ask permission to use that suit?" Dean blurts out, instead of answering.

"I did."

"And he actually agreed?" Dean's eyebrows shoot up.

"He is a devout man. He may have been uninformed as to exactly what this experience would be like."

"I'm honestly not sure what I think of you. I can't imagine you honestly know what I think of you either."

"I think you think that I am a worker bee. That I am a tool in the hands of God, a means to His end."

"Well, I suppose I do think that," Dean admits, still watching townspeople walk by. "I definitely think you're some kind of tool after the way you hardly stuck up for us against Uriel."

"I want you to know that I do have doubts, Dean. I do not always believe what comes to me is right. Or even divine. Things right now are...complicated."

At this, Dean looks up at the angel and finds him with his face turned towards the sky, warm sunlight washing his face and giving it a glow that seemed more angelic than any moment of his divine exhibitionism from before.

"I don't believe I really know moral from amoral any longer. And I'm not sure this…_test_—to see how you would fair with...extemporaneous decisions—was a success or failure on your part or ours."

"I—Cas, I don't think I'm concerned with your pass/fail _experiments_. I'm pretty sure that given that same ultimatum again, we'd have still resisted you two. These people's lives, each one of them, is important. What we did here was important."

There is silence between them, just the ambient sound of shrieking happy children and shouting parents filling gap for a few minutes.

"This Seal was technically broken." Castiel tries to be gentle, not looking at Dean still.

"But we saved these people from torture and torment and all that other bad shit Samhain would have brought."

Castiel visibly recoils, if only slightly, at the truth in Dean's words.

"What Samhain would have summoned is a mere _fraction_ of what Lucifer is capable, Dean. I believe you are severely underestimating what an Apocalypse entails."

"Cas, I can't _afford_ to think about the real details of all this. It's... a little too big for me. All I can do is the one day at a time shtick, one foot in front of the another. Saving every life I can for as long as I can."

"I…understand."

"But one thing that's been bugging me—of _all_ the shit that's been bugging me—is what Uriel said. About my dad. The whole Righteous Man thing?" Dean wrings his hands together.

"The Seals, they're a process, a…recipe. It has steps, something that has to happen first and something that has to happen last."

"What does that have to do with—" Castiel cuts Dean off with a sharp look in his clear eyes.

"The first Seal, the first step, was a Righteous Man breaking in Hell…"

"When…what _breaks?_ What exactly are you saying? What's _in_ Hell?"

"I think this is a conversation you ought to have with your father." Castiel moves back away from Dean, standing, and Dean moves his head away to give Castiel an out, a clean break for both of them. He doesn't have to turn back to know the angel took it and ran.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

"Dad, were—were you in Hell? After you died?" Dean asks after several hours of silence in the car, Sam passed out in the back seat. Dean isn't even sure what state they're in.

The subtle swerve the car makes is the only indication that John heard him at all.

"Who told you that?" John finally said, letting Dean's voice ring in his own head for a little too long.

"Cas."

"I don't think I like that angel. Don't trust him." John deflected.

"How'd—how'd you die in the first place?" Dean tries to get the conversation back on track.

"It wasn't a hero's death." John's voice is gruff. "If that's what you're asking. I got this yellow-eyed sonuvabitch and before I knew it, one of his lackeys got me from behind. And that's it. Next thing I know, I'm in the pit. Not much more to it." John says, eyes not straying from the empty back road.

"Yellow-eyed? Was he a…demon?"

"He was after Sam. I couldn't let that happen."

"He was after Sam?" Dean's eyes bug out of his head.

"That's why I had to make a deal with him. Get him off Sam's back. It's why I was in Hell."

"I—" Dean tries, "What was Hell like?" His voice is unbelievably soft. He'd read Dante's Inferno in grade school and wasn't scared by the depictions of sinners rolling rocks around or whatever they do. When he tried to think of his dad there, he pictured him trying to stab demons with sticks broken off from the suicide forest. It almost made him laugh.

"Terrible, Dean. Don't ever go there," John says with a dry laugh. Dean feels his shoulders loosen when he realizes John's default is humor, too; he nods and looks out the window.

The road curves a little and John reaches over to try and slowly turn the radio dial to tune into a fleeting Bon Jovi song in between towns. Dean hardly hears it, imagining bodily mutilations, feet burning for eternity and wallowing in a river of shit.

The radio station stays with them for nearly half an hour before cutting out too much. John turns it off and speaks up again, startling Dean out of the morbid images his uninformed mind was supplementing for a concept of Hell.

"They rip you and tear you, limb from limb. You're down there screaming for your life and they're enjoying every second of it. They whisper and scream the worst things you can imagine while they carve into your skin. The same, every day. They cut you to pieces and the next day you're whole again so they can start all over. There aren't _layers_ or anything. It's just you and a demon. Everyone is getting tortured."

_They_. _Demons_, Dean realizes. He doesn't know what to say, what words he could possibly give to his father and make it better. He nods, tight lipped, instead.

"Time passes differently down there, too, Dean. One month up here is like ten years down there."

And John lets that sink in. He was dead and buried for nearly a year. He had spent over a century in hell.

"They made me an offer, Dean. Every day they said they'd stop if I agreed to join them. I told them to fuck off. I didn't know what that would mean for me. So, every day, for one hundred and ten years, I said no every day," John sighs. "One day, I agreed. I jumped off the rack and they put me in sales."

Dean looks back at Sam's soft face, relaxed in slumber. "Sales?" He thinks of Willy Loman with a vacuum cleaner.

"Crossroads, cuttin' deals."

"Seriously?" Dean doesn't want to admit it, but he thinks it's actually kind of cool.

John has a distance, worried tightness in his face that Dean doesn't really understand but he doesn't ask.

_Righteous Man_. The title had been bouncing around in Dean's head ever since the angel—Uriel, who looked like the type of angel who would only ever refer to humans as "monkeys"—spat it out at John. "_For the Righteous Man, you're pretty underwhelming yourself._" Dean had to ask.

"That other angel, he said you were 'The Righteous Man.' Do you know what that means?"

"Got me there, kid. Didn't think I was anything special. Just trying to do the best I could for the family I still had left."

Dean tries to think of his mother but he can hardly think of what she looked like without conjuring the image of a photo he kept tucked in his sock drawer.

"Did you become a hunter for Mom's sake?"

"Yeah." He sounds like he wants to say more but he never does.

Dean thinks he hears tears in his father's voice but he doesn't check, remembering a bruise on his check that was from 'walking into a door' when he walked in on John crying at the age of ten. His teacher had known exactly what it was but said nothing. They left that school three days later.

Just before sunset, John pulls off at the Sunrise Motel—a one story building with a few cars parked in the front and peeling paint partially covered with wilting palm trees. He parks the car and Dean follows him into the office where a walrus-mustached man is stationed at the front desk. John cracks a joke as he hands over a credit with a name that isn't his on it and casually inquires where the nearest liquor store is.

Sam is awake when they get back to the car with the room keys. He offers to drive so Dean can have first shower; Dean can't argue with that.

John is already stumbling from the alcohol he drank in the car when Dean gets out of the shower. His speech is slurred, yelling at the television remote.

"Dean-o, I need you tah turn on the TV for me." He says, looking with his sunken eyes and half empty bottle of Jack. Dean snarls, snatching the remote from him and angrily turns on the machine for his quickly incapacitated father who is stumbling back to the table where Sam stacked his bag and books.

"What? You think just 'cause I started tha'pocalypse that I'm going to sit around cryin' 'bout it?" John demands, violently swiping at all of Sam's things in the way only the truly inebriated ever do.

"No," Dean answers, voice steely, "but I expect you to take it like a man."

"I'm _drunk_, Dean. That _is_ how men take things," he remarks, laying his forehead on the cool table top.

"No, you giant asshole, like a _real_ man. You were in _Hell_, for crissakes. I'm sure I would have broken _a lot_ sooner than one hundred and ten years. _Fuck_." Dean yells, running a hand over his hair. "That's a hell of a long time."

"Fuck _off_, Dean. Can't y'leave an old man tah his misery?" John's eyes move to Dean's face and his face is ashen. Dean wants to feel bad, feel sympathy at how pathetic John really looks. He's nearly thirty and he's still having to take care of his dad; he never thought he'd ever have to again.

"No, I really can't. Now, come on." Dean yanks his father until he finally gets the drunken man up and out toward the parking lot; he sighs when he sees Sam's left the Impala for him. "There's a McDonald's back down the street callin' your name." He doesn't like the possibility of his father choking on his own vomit while he runs to get food to sober him up a little. John throws up on the concrete of the parking lot before he can even slump into the car.

…

"That was good, what you did for John," Castiel says to Dean as he sucks down the rest of the soda in his slowly disintegrating McDonald's cup.

"He's my dad." Dean doesn't feel like a hero, staring at his shoes and thinking all the times he's seen his role model slobbering drunk. "Cas," he starts up again, not entirely sure how to get out what he wants to say, "I don't want to have to do this." Dean admits, glancing up at Castiel.

"Do you see your brother here? Clearly, he has…_other_ priorities." Castiel's face is hard, his eyes are soft.

"Sam, he's got his own demons," Dean stops to laugh bitterly to himself, "Literally." His eyebrows go up and his eyes go back to his shoes. "I guess. He doesn't need to pick up Dad's messes, too."

"You've done a fair amount of 'picking up' your father's messes." Castiel speaks with an authority he shouldn't have.

"Does this really count? Is the Apocalypse really my dad's mess?"

"No. It is a divine plan."

"One you really don't like, do you?"

"I am not overly fond of it, no."

"You _like_ mankind." Dean smiles up at Cas, trying to goad him into some sort of admission.

"I do." Castiel replies stoically, steady as a rock.

"You're a spoil-sport, you know that?" Dean shakes his head, still smiling, "I was trying to make fun of you."

"Oh." Cas' eyebrows knit together.

Dean shrugs awkwardly, slurping the remnants of his drink. "You know, I always assumed Dad was in the mafia or something, even though he said he was a mechanic. Mechanics don't _travel_ around like that. And he came back all cut and beaten all the time. I stitched him up once or twice. Just thought it meant I was a small part of the mafia, too. How badass is that for a kid?"

"I suppose." Castiel sounds lost.

Dean walks to the nearest trash can and the angel follows. "What else am I supposed to do, though? This just got so much bigger to me than it already was. Dad told me about his time in Hell. Said he was in sales, which kind of sounds cool. Getting to me the Robert Johnsons of the world. He's pretty broken up about it, though. Plus, it's a whole different kettle of fish to find out you're the reason the whole fucking apocalypse is happening, on top of that."

"Why do you think your father is alive now?" Castiel questions. Dean is annoyed at the deflection.

"I don't know," Dean stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets and stalks back over to his car with the angel in tow.

"He has a purpose. It's a role God gave him. If God didn't want him to break in Hell, he would not have."

"What does _that_ mean?"

"I'm not entirely sure," Cas has the good grace to look at least somewhat abashed. "It's what the higher ups told me."

"Higher ups?"

"The archangels. They were the last ones to hear from God."

"Wait, wait, wait. What do you mean 'last ones to hear from God?' You saying he pulled a Houdini or something?"

"He has disappeared, yes. He has been absent for several thousand years. I, myself, have never been in his presence. Though, I have felt it."

"I…what am I supposed to _do_ with that information?" Dean runs a hand through his hair and tries to ignore the headache underneath his eyebrows.

"Dean, I—all I know is that your father is the only one that can stop this. The apocalypse."

"_Seriously?_" Dean makes an incredulous face at the angel, "Then why the fuck do you guys care about me and Sam?" Dean demands, wheeling on Cas. "Did you just want some shitty _welcome_ committee for him, to make him _feel_ better?

"You and your brother are important in your own right..." Castiel tries to get the conversation back on track but Dean is facing away again.

"Yeah? And how's that?"

"I—I don't know. That's..._above my pay grade_, as you would say."

Dean laughs mirthlessly and walks back towards the hotel room, wondering where the hell Sam went.

Castiel hears the darkness in Dean's voice; he has no condolences to offer. "Have faith," he says instead, calling out to his back.

"I have faith that I need to get drunk now, too," he reaches the door of his room. "Good night, Cas," he says and lets himself inside.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

The light is warm, flooding in through the curtains in Dean's room in Bobby's house. When he's sleeping there, he hardly remembers that his own home was ruined by a fallen tree just a few months prior. He pads lightly down the stairs, worry knotting in his stomach from his dream last night.

"Cas was in my dream last night," Dean announces, rubbing his face from sleep when he sees Sam at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading the local newspaper like he hadn't been missing the previous night and the night before that and every night since Dean had argued with Cas.

"That's…nice, Dean," Sam says like he would have liked to make a joke but it was too early for either of them.

"No, man. I think this was like _actual_ Cas, trying to…_tell_ me something. He said it wasn't safe in my own dream and that we needed to meet him at this _warehouse _he gave me the address for. Can we maybe Google it and see if it exists or whatever?"

Ordinarily, Sam would have poked fun at Dean a little longer before relenting but there was distress in Dean's posture; the laptop was brandished wordlessly.

"Thanks," Dean says and waits for it to boot up.

Dean recounts the address and Sam's fingers fly over the keyboard, typing into Google maps.

"Looks like it's a _real_ address," Sam says and scrolls in closer, "Looks like it is a warehouse, too. Huh." He seems surprised.

"I think it was…urgent." Dean said, moving towards the front door to grab his shoes before going for the stairs. Sam, after years of traveling with his father and brother, knows that it's better to go along with Dean than try to make a scene out of it. Sam makes haste of waking up their father and packing his own bag.

…

The warehouse is on the edge of Sioux Falls; Dean enters cautiously, feeling uneasy scuffing his feet on the dusty floor.

"This looks like a war zone," Sam says, grip tightening around his gun.

"This look like demon stuff, Dad?" Dean asks, trying to push the image of Cas' body bloody and dead by the hand a sniveling demon out of his mind.

"Tell you the truth, this looks like angel-on-angel violence," John answers, dropping the pretense of being protected by ordinary weapons, tucking his gun back into his jacket.

"How can you even tell?" Dean turns a screwed up face towards his dad, forgetting about a potentially slaughtered Cas for a moment.

"Well, for one, there's no _sulfur_ smell and demons are pretty…clean-cut with their violence. They break necks and slit throats. They don't throw people into pipes and windows. This looks large scale, _Smart Ass_."

Dean backs off at the flashing in John's eyes and they move on in silence, shuffling around the wreckage and looking for anything that could possibly resemble Castiel. Dean's stomach drops when he finally sees a body lying on the ground under rubble and plaster.

"Cas!" he hears himself cry out and races forward, resisting every urge in his body to shake the man. _Cas could be dead_.

Sam is behind Dean, looking over his shoulder, not moving. John is the one that brandishes a flask of holy water and dumps it on the angel's vessel.

"What the fuck?" Dean cranes his neck at his father but John simples points back to the figure on the floor.

"Cas?" Dean asks, slapping his face lightly when he sees the eyes flickering open. "Cas, are you all right?"

"I—I'm _not_ Castiel." The voice definitely sounds different.

"Jimmy," The man croaks, "Jimmy Novak." The man's hands come up to his face and rub where Dean slapped him.

"Do you know where Cas is, Jimmy?" Sam steps in, seeing Dean is not quite in control of the situation.

"They took him," Jimmy says, eyes deliberately closed now.

"They?" Sam tries to get Jimmy to clarify.

"The angels, they came down here and they dragged Castiel away."

"Fuck," Dean curses under his breath, "Well, what do we do?" he addresses to everyone, including Jimmy who is now side-eyeing Dean with one red eye.

"How about you point me to the nearest _bus_ station?" Jimmy asks, trying to sit up.

"Do you even have money on you?" Dean looks skeptical, standing up and moving away.

"I…" Jimmy trails off when he realizes Dean has a point.

"At least let us get you something to eat," Dean offers knowingly, sticking out a hand to help Jimmy to his feet.

"I _could_ eat," Jimmy concedes.

…

"Where you from, brother?" John says, half eaten burger still sitting in the carton in front of him while Jimmy jams all the fries that will fit in between his teeth before swallowing enough to answer.

"Pontiac, Illinois," he says through a mouth full of food, like he's proud of the fact.

John's face goes rigid and Dean feels a tense sense of confusion grip him as he sees it happening.

"Wife? Kids?" he says, playing it cool instead.

To Jimmy, John's questions probably come across as innocuous, conversational banter but Dean has started to pick up a few things; he realizes his dad is probably weighing the options. They'd kind of learned the hard way that angels are not meant to be trifled with and if Jimmy is wrapped up in it—being Castiel's vessel, and all—it is probably best to lay low and keep him away from the people he knew.

"A wife and a daughter." Jimmy stops then, a huge grin splitting his face, thankfully having swallowed his masticated food before opening his mouth the second time. "Speaking of, when do you think we can go see them?" Jimmy smiles up at the three Winchesters sitting around the table but is only met by three stolid expressions—Sam and Dean following their father's example.

"I'm not so sure it's safe if we go see them, just yet." John says, cautious after clearing his throat.

"Then when?" Jimmy's voice gets a little frantic and the smile drops off completely. Dean can see it is his eyes: Jimmy just became afraid of the Winchesters.

"We just need to stay here, at least for tonight." Dean says, trying to placate the man, reflexively falling into the position of mediator for the angel—despite the celestial being no longer inhabiting the flesh before him. He tries to shake off the small pang of disappointment he feels when he reminds himself of this and Jimmy speaks, confirming that he is not an angel.

"I need to go home, to my family." He is pleading, though he holds back, not wanting to upset these strange people.

"Jimmy, it's not _safe_." Sam cuts in, giving the man a stern look despite it being obvious that Sam is younger than Jimmy. "We need to know what you remember."

Jimmy sits back, dropping his food and looking around the room. "You're keeping me prisoner, aren't you?"

"That's one way of looking at it," John says, nodding his head to the side.

"Or you could see it as friendly, helpful detention." Dean finds himself saying, smiling his usual shit-eating grin. No one else laughs.

"What do you remember?" Sam reiterates, eyebrows shooting up, imploring the man to know _something_.

"Very little. I know that it was painful and unpleasant," Jimmy replies, crossing his arms and refusing to look at them.

Dean is reminded of Cas and chuckles to himself. Three pairs of eyes shoot towards him in varying degrees of menace.

"Sorry," he apologizes and looks at Jimmy who is beginning to fall easily into the role of a detainee.

"I remember I never want to do that again. I just want to go _home_."

"Take it easy, Jimmy," Dean says, standing up and placing a hand on Jimmy's shoulder, the gesture not feeling out of place to him. "Why don't you get some sleep and we'll talk about it more in the morning, after a good night's rest." He smiles again, this time more tired than anything.

…

"You were on _watch_, Sam. Are you serious 'he's gone'?" Dean's face scrunches up in annoyance.

"Dean, let me handle this," his dad steps in and suddenly Dean feels like he's twelve all over again; he obeys. He goes outside and leans against the Impala, wishing that Castiel would pop up out of nowhere to talk to him, knowing it isn't going to happen this time.

When John and Sam finally come out of the motel room, Sam's eyes are trained on the ground and the three of them jump in the car, slamming the doors louder than really necessary. John puts on a tape, Metallica, and starts singing it loudly. Dean wants to join in but he's angry.

"How the hell do we even go about tracking down someone when all they gave us was the city they live in?" Dean demands, exasperated with the whole thing and wanting nothing but to drive his Baby. He recognizes the car is _technically_ his father's but he's grown accustomed the soothing puttering of the engine wheezing and vibrating in the steering wheel beneath his curled fingers. He doesn't know what to do with his hands riding passenger seat.

"Dean, would you _relax?_" They haven't even left Minnesota yet and John is starting to sound irritated as they trail after Castiel's vessel like their lives depended on it. "That's what your brother's here for."

"Yeah, well, if the little bitch hadn't run off in the first place, we wouldn't have to be tracking Jimmy's ass anyway."

Sam is smart enough to know that this is not a battle worth fighting; at least, not yet.

"Knock it off," John threatens, using the hand he has resting on the seat back behind Dean to slap him on the back of the head.

Dean devolves back into his petty childhood self, muttering about how they shouldn't even be in this mess but drops it for the time being.

…

Pontiac, Illinois is a little white spot surrounded in the middle of an otherwise unremarkable area of square patches of green farms. That's what most of the Midwest looks like. And if Dean is honest, he really hates it. He did a lot of growing up around Sioux Falls and it was just the same, another one-story town. The Novak's home is cozy, near down town a few blocks from a white church. Dean would never admit it, but he's thankful for the quickness of Sam's search engine skills and John's reckless driving when they bust down the Novak's front door, unceremonious, and interrupt what looks to be a ritual sacrificing of three humans by two black-eyed demons. He has grown rather fond of Cas' vessel and now that there were real people that mattered attached to the man behind that face, he can't let anything happen to them either.

The split second he takes to confirm Jimmy is unharmed is the second it takes for a demon to tackle him to the ground, wrap its grubby hands around his throat and start throttling him. He only has time to regret that he couldn't talk to Castiel one more time before the force in the fingers strangling him die and he sees a blue, electric current pulse through the body on top of him. It slumps, lifeless, directly on top of Dean and Sam uses the toe of his boot to roll the carcass off of him. Sam extends his hand and hauls his brother to his feet while their father tries to verbally exorcise the other demon while engaging in hand to hand combat with it.

"Thanks," Dean wheezes, thinking about needing to apologize to his brother in private later, if they live through this stupid scrap in the middle of suburban fucking Illinois. Before John can finish the chant, the demon inside the woman laughs and the gray smoke pours out through the victim's mouth before she drops, unconscious, on the floor. Dean watches in horror, Sam in some kind of disappointment, and John in dispassion.

"What the hell kind of knife _is_ that?" John's voice booms instead, watching Sam wipe the blood from it onto his jeans. The Novaks are huddled together in the corner, just about as frightened of the Winchesters as they were of the demons, and Dean has a second to spare sympathy for them being dragged in to this mess; he doesn't want them to top the list of Dean's own personal 'witnesses' like Bobby had. He hears his brother reply "A demon killing knife."

"Where the hell did you get it?" John demands, drawing closer to his youngest son.

"It's not really important." Sam deflects, moving towards the family. "We've got to get them _out_ of here." And as Sam says it, everyone in the room knows it's true.

As the three Winchesters jump in the front seat and the three Novak's take the back, Dean makes a mental note to bring up the knife later, though he thinks he has a pretty good idea of where Sam got it already.

John steers them around, asking Jimmy directly where the nearest parking garage is.

"Why?" Jimmy stutters, still trying to catch his breath. There is blood on his face. No one answers the man's question. Instead, he fills the silence with quick directions.

…

"I—I'm sorry I doubted you guys," Jimmy concedes, scratching his head and watching his family sleep in the car.

Sam and John's faces remain serious.

"It's okay," Dean says, trying to ease the other man's nerves.

"I don't think the demons are going to let you go. They're always going to come after you," John pipes up, "Forever."

"But, really, I don't know anything," Jimmy's voice is a little desperate and Dean can understand sympathize.

"I don't think that really _matters_ to them; you're a vessel," Dean explains, feeling like a fish out of water when Jimmy looks at him like he's the authority on demons and their shitty motives.

"They're not going to care at all. They'll carve you up and play with your innards," Sam cuts in and Jimmy's eyes go wide. "You're putting them," Sam gestures wildly to the car, "in danger. You can't ever be with them. Do you get it? There's a price on your head," Sam's nostrils are flaring and he is gesticulating right in Jimmy's face. "Either walk away or put a bullet in your brain right now."

"Okay," Jimmy steels himself, "Fine, okay. What do we do?"

…

They don't have any other plan; John can't even think of anything. It's a delicate hostage situation and the four of them go charging in, slashing at the group of demons that come towards them. Jimmy's wife—Amelia, Dean heard him call her—has a twisted smile on her face and she's got an iron grip on the child's upper arm. The girl is crying as her own mother drags her around, the demon's voice echoing in her throat. Something snaps in Dean, he wants to stab the demon in the face and starts toward her. Sam's hand snaps to Dean's arm and pulls him back, huffing from having just stabbed a demon that is now laying in blood on the floor.

"No, Dean," he hisses into Dean's ear and the second of distraction gives two demons enough time to tackle both of them.

Underneath the hulking man trying to knock Dean out who has landed a few punches already, Dean hears a gunshot fired and the sound of a body collapsing. Distantly, he hopes to _hell_ his father shot a demon but five feet away he can hear his father wrestling with a demon of his own. It's Jimmy, it _has_ to be Jimmy. Sam is somewhere to his right, the special knife out and cutting through the neck of the woman who had had him pinned down.

_Please don't be dead, please don't be dead_, Dean thinks as he brings his knee up between the legs of his assailant and earning himself just enough time to get the upper hand. He rolls the man off him and is about to throw some more punches when a blinding light breaks into his line of vision like a soundless lightening clap, right where the mouth and eyes of the man who was trying to kill him used to be. He looks up and Jimmy's little girl is standing with her hand to the man's forehead. She is different, stoic and collected; Dean recognizes Castiel behind her eyes.

"Cas," he whispers, still on the ground and able to see that the demon attacking his father was smote as well. As Dean stands up to join his father and the little girl, he sees Sam straddling a demon-infested woman on the cement floor and cutting a slice in her throat.

Horrified, he watches as his brother's his lips latch on to the small cut, ripping and tearing it wider and wider with his teeth like a feral dog. There is blood smeared all over Sam's face; Dean has the urge to put the beast down, a bullet in its brain.

There is a cackling that pulls Dean's eyes away from his brother. The one demon left, the one inside Amelia that John, Dean, and Castiel do not move to destroy her, tries to look as though she has the upper hand even though she's backed into a corner. There is a silence, filled only by her ragged half-laughter but Sam's hand comes up, squeezing into a fist. Dean wants to laugh, make a joke about the Force but the demon is silenced and she appears to be choking just before that same gray smoke that Dean has learned is what demons really look like drips from her mouth and Amelia falls unconscious to the floor. Jimmy, forgotten on the ground, nearly chokes on a gurgled sob, blood flecks landing on his lips as all attention falls on him. His daughter, Castiel, walks forward and crouches in front of him. Her head tilts, birdlike, and Dean is overwhelmed by the thought that Castiel—his angel—is inside her, experiencing humanity through such a zoom lens. Jimmy Novak—the real Jimmy—is gritting through blood in his teeth, and begging the angel to spare his child from the torment that he had experienced while the celestial being had inhabited his skin. Even Dean feels something swell inside him, something like pride, in someone he doesn't even really know. It is just suddenly apparent to him that it's men like Jimmy that give meaning to the grueling, thankless life of a hunter.

Dean watches as Castiel warns Jimmy in the body of a twelve year old girl, tells him the torment is _never over_, yet Jimmy is spitting out righteously that the angel should _take him, it doesn't matter, take him_. The angel does not argue, merely places the child's hand to her father's face and fills the room with holy light of the non-corporeal angel as he exchanges vessels.

Dean watches, numb, as Castiel stands in Jimmy's skin again and Amelia crawls over to her child that looks as though she is about to faint on the damp floor.

"Cas," he calls, watching the angel's taut shoulders moving away from him. Sound feels like a bubble pushing through his ears. "What did you want to tell me?" His voice cracks and he sounds feeble.

It's Cas, Dean knows from the way the angel stops moving, shoulders like a soldier. He doesn't even turn around when he speaks.

"I've seen the error of my ways, Dean. I don't owe you anything." Castiel's tone sinks Dean's stomach and the angle is gone before he can think of a proper rebuttal.


End file.
